


be here, by me

by galacticdrift (Ancalime)



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2013-10-28
Packaged: 2017-12-30 16:59:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1021159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ancalime/pseuds/galacticdrift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of snapshots in the lives of two women. Title from Sappho.</p>
            </blockquote>





	be here, by me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [orro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orro/gifts).



> For Orro, who requested pre-canon Maxine/Paula.

Just the two of them remained, after the other three members of the group gone their separate ways. "Remained" implied that they'd all been there to disperse in the first place, though -- Paula gritted her teeth as she looked across the table at Maxine, who'd only shown up as the others were already leaving. _Three years into med school and group work is still the world's most colossal waste of time_ , she thought.

"So, we're all done?" Maxine's voice betrayed her lack of interest in their shared work.

"I wouldn't presume to say so just yet. Have you finished your research?" Paula eyed her, dubious, but Maxine detached a USB drive from her battered and sparkling fist-size assortment of keys and keychains, and slid it over.

"'Course I have." She smirked. "Days ago."

Paula opened her mouth, then closed it, her fingers curling tight around the small USB drive. She plugged it into her computer and browsed through the files, noting the collected articles and textbook excerpts, opening Maxine's written analysis only to feel her eyes widen as it went on, comprehensively, for pages and pages.

"You finished all this," Paula waved a hand at the computer, " _days_ ago."

"Sure did."

"And yet you waited until now to tell me. You've been dragging your heels and downplaying the amount of work you'd done the whole time specifically because you knew it would bother me."

"Are you kidding me? Of course I did. Watching you rant and rave was like getting a free movie screening. I almost brought popcorn last time."

Paula stared at Maxine, wholly at a loss for words.

"Listen -- since we're done here, want to go grab a coffee?"

"I-- no. No, thank you. I have a great deal more work to do, as do you, I'm sure."

Maxine sighed, her expression more regretful than Paula expected. "All right."

\---

"Paula? Paula Cohen?" The voice and accent stood out from the homogenous everyday rabble, and Paula looked up to see a dark-skinned woman in running kit cocking her head and smiling.

"I'm sorry, I don't think-- no! That damned group project in third year--"

"--of med school, yeah. You do remember!"

"Maxine, wasn't it?"

"That's me. What are you doing here?"

"I work at the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability, just down the road."

"Small world. I'm over at Queen Mary's now." Maxine jabbed a thumb back over her shoulder. "You never did take me up on that coffee, back in third year. Is it too late to try again?"

\---

Paula felt dizzy and intoxicated, overwhelmed by a sense of her perceptions being altered though she'd only had a couple of beers over the course of the night. Two weeks after running into Maxine on the streets of Putney, and all she wanted was to drag the other woman into the darkness outside the club and kiss her against the brick wall, walk her stumbling back to Paula's tiny flat and kiss her in the doorway, tumble them both onto the squeaking bed and kiss every inch of her skin just as soon as she could get her clothing off.

Maxine returned from the loo, her eyes bright, and slid her fingers into Paula's. She squeezed Paula's hand, and the flash of her grin was blinding white in her dark face. Every thought in Paula's mind must have been written plain as day across her face, because Maxine leaned her whole body in against Paula's and kissed her, hard and joyful.

"Let's get out of here."

\---

"Pandora Haze has been sniffing around the RHN staff." Paula said, between bites of saag paneer. "Some rep in a fancy suit gave me his card today."

Maxine sniffed. "Poachers."

"Poachers who pay well. Poachers who have a lot of money to devote to a very narrow focus on very grand ambitions."

Maxine let the tips of her chopsticks rest on her plate, and peered at Paula's face. Paula tried not to duck away, but Maxine's time in medicine had only made her better at the kind of guilt-inducing look shared by doctors and mothers alike.

"You really want to go work for them."

"I do, Maxie. I really do." Paula brushed Maxine's wrist with her fingers, letting her hand settle over the warm skin. "Research like theirs could change the whole course of civilization. It could be penicillin all over again, or the polio vaccine. I want to be part of that. I want to try and make everyone's lives better, not just the people who end up in hospital. Not just the people alive today but all the people yet to come."

"Okay, okay." Maxine's expression melted into a smile. "I get it, no need to get up on your soapbox."

\---

"I used to think you couldn't stand me, you know." Maxine's voice was a little muffled, her head pillowed on Paula's stomach. There were a million things they both needed to be doing, work that came home with them and dishes that needed washing and that apartment they now shared that needed cleaning before it became an honest-to-God biohazard. Still they both dozed, late into the morning, sweat cooling on their skin and the smell of sex hanging in the air.

"Where's this coming from?"

"Just thinking back to when we met."

"You used to be right. I couldn't believe what a pain you were."

"Speak for yourself, Miss Pushy." Maxine giggled, then shifted a hand to drum her fingertips on Paula's ribs. "I was a pain because I wanted you to pay attention to me. Mostly."

"Mission bloody well accomplished, then." It was Paula's turn to laugh, only to be distracted by Maxine kissing her stomach, fingers moving upward to tease the soft underside of her breast.

"You're so beautiful. I thought so the moment we first met."

"Mmm, I can't say the same," Maxine said against her skin, and at Paula's surprised questioning noise she looked up with a wicked grin. "Took me a while to appreciate the hair."

"Why you little--!"

\---

"Look at our lives, Paula! When is either of us ever going to have time to take care of even one child?"

"We're on the verge of something at Pandora Haze, I know it. Once that comes through things won't be so busy. I could take time off. They're paying me more now, too, and when this is done I'll be in a position to ask for more again. I could support us, Maxie--"

"People won't just stop getting sick, Paula. You haven't seen it because Pandora Haze is rolling in research funding, but out in the real world--"

"The real world?! Maxine, I'm trying to make the real world a better place, all at once, forever, in a way that will change--"

"Change medicine forever. I know. You've told me. But until then, hospitals are constantly expected to do more for an ever-increasing number of people with less money and support every year. I can't just-- leave that, to go off and, and _have a kid_. How selfish! Real people need me now, every single day."

"There will always be more people who need you, Maxie, more people than you can possibly help as one woman, no matter how many days you work or don't work. There will always be lives you can't change."

"So, what? I should just accept that and kick up my heels, take it easy?"

"Maxine, I love you, and I want us to have a future -- a _family_ \-- together. Don't you want that? Isn't that something you would enjoy? I know how much your family means to you. Think about what we could have for ourselves, our _own_ family."

"I can't. Not right now. For now we just need to stop having this argument. I'm going out for a run."

Paula stared into her coffee cup, her mind blank and foggy, until Maxine called her name from the doorway.

"Paula?"

"Yes?" She didn't feel the lump in her throat until her voice came out, a little thick and strained.

"I love you, too."


End file.
